Art and technology – they both give us the opportunity to relate to our environments in a plurality of ways. Working together, they generate new constructs and modes of thinking and acting, they might even give life to new forms of existence.
This autumn, Stockholm’s Moderna Museet is setting the scene to initialize our minds for a trip beyond the structures that technology has made. The group exhibition ‘Mud Muses: A Rant About Technology’ is bringing together the work of artists from all around the world to help us make sense of – or get lost in – the relationship between life, art and technology.

Finnish artist and musician Jenna Sutela (@jennasutela) uses words, sounds and living media such as bacteria and slime moulds in her sculpture, installations, sound art and video. Her art can be described as an investigation into identifying and reacting to social and material moments, often in relation to technology. Her sound works also play with the idea of a Martian language and the existence of extremophilic space bacteria (those that can live in extreme habitats). Her work is suffused with the prevailing presence of unknown and alternative forms of intelligence.

Sutela’s installation I Magma (2019) in the exhibition features a series of head-shaped lava lamps made specially for the exhibition. The movements of the lava (heated by the lamps) generate visuals which are then ‘read’ by a machine-learning programme that interprets the shapes according to codes of the I Ching. The constantly moving, randomly shaped blobs of liquid not only constitute a vividly coloured work of art but also form the basis of an exploration of the connections between the human and non-human in technology.

“The inspiration comes from the Wall of Entropy, a wall of lava lamps encrypting online data at a web performance company in San Francisco,” the artist explains. “It is based on an original idea by the engineers at Sun Microsystems in the 1990s, who suggested that lava lamps were a useful tool for generating randomness. Instead of randomness, however, my work looks for patterns, signs or meaning in the lava flow. I Magma expands my research into alternative forms of intelligence by applying chemical and digital processes in the creation of an oracle.”

The relationship between art and technology, their coexistence and the ways to create new life are fundamental to Sutela’s work. “It’s only natural that art occupies the digital realm, just like every other part of our lives,” she says. “Rather than thinking about what technology can do for art, I’m more interested in suggesting that non-instrumentalized ways of using technology in art may yield interesting and important results.”

The work of New York-based artist and architectural designer Lucy Siyao Liu (@lsy.liu) explores the relationship between art, technology and environment. Using drawing, installations, animation and performance, she examines the role and influence of technologies on our ways of knowing. Her way of imaging technologies allows us to look at our environments in a different light.

Her work in ‘Mud Muses’ is A Curriculum on the Fabrication of Clouds (2019) is a cluster of representational methods of cloud depiction within art and science across three centuries. According to Liu, the cloud as a symbol has become so frequently cited as a model of coherence, that it constitutes a trope shape for the 21st century.

“I’m interested in how our relationships with an environment and environmental phenomenon is hugely structured by specific ways of ‘methodizing nature’,” Liu says. “And A Curriculum on the Fabrication of Clouds is an invitation to reconsider and challenge our assumptions about technology and environment. The term ‘cloud’ is a topological trap. It’s a vortex of indescribable shapes. Anything that comprises many parts can claim to be a cloud. The co-option of the term is symptomatic of a state of being. A Curriculum is attempting to address the material body of the cloud before it disintegrates into a symbol of the digital. In a way, I hope the material imagination of the cloud can allow us to think beyond digital binaries – analogue or digital, on or off, this or that – and more towards a plurality of phases.”

In Liu’s work, every drawing method developed to capture cloud becomes an experiment in constructing new ways of imaging the environment. “If we can understand technology as contingent on the cultural, historical and social context in which a technique, a tool or a method of structuring the environment emerges from, then drawing is a technology,” she suggests. “Technology doesn’t stand apart from art. If anything, our imaginations on technology should move on from the aesthetics of its hardware and consider how it is already part of how we make sense of the patterns in the world, part of the substrate of living. I’m interested in how our relationships with an environment and environmental phenomenon is hugely structured by specific ways of methodizing nature. A Curriculum wants us to reconsider and challenge our assumptions about technology and environment.”
She describes an ambivalent relationship towards the era of digitalization. Struggling with its ways of abstracting effects and relationships, she expresses a desperate kind of excitement for the future, fuelled by the frustration of the present.
“It is not enough to be dealing with metaphors of our climate crisis or uncertainties,” she says. “Rather, we should be engaging as much as possible with the material, the specific and the contextual. I work to expand what technology defines and encourage an awareness that computational renditions of the world are not the world itself. It seems to be obvious, but as our identities, feelings, languages and articulations get siphoned through encoded systems into lower and lower dimensions, our ways of thinking enmesh with the way computation works. It’s hard to disentangle it from that one-to-one relationship and recognize the potential we have to relate to our environments in a plurality of ways.”

In order to move forward, Liu see art as a crucial instrument in the process of making sense of the digitized reality. “Art carves a space for reconsideration. The hope is that in the act of considering, we develop care for one another (human or non-human), and continuously learn to move beyond crisis in the abstract.”

Credits:
Words by Tor Hammarin
Mud Muses at Moderna Museet until 12/1 2020

Art Credits:
Works by jenna sutela, Gut-Machine Poetry, Many-Headed Reading, and Neither a Thing nor and Organism all works © and courtesy the artists
Works by Lucy Siyao Liu, Squareish Scroll on Mylar, from the series ‘A Curriculum on the Fabrication of Clouds’, photograph by Prallan Allsten, courtesy Moderna Museet; Epochs; Asteroid Float; Melancholia I; and Iteration 4 © and courtesy the artists

Swallow antidepressants and it will be gone
Tear down the gate of hallucinations
Amidst the agony of flowers, the present never ends
At the stairs to heaven, my heart expires in their tenderness
Calling from the sky, doubtless, transparent in its shade of blue
Embraced with the shadow of illusion
Cumulonimbi arise
Sounds of tears, shed upon eating the colour of cotton rose
I become a stone
Not in time eternal
But in the present that transpires

– Song of a Manhattan Suicide Addict by Yayoi Kusama

Eighty-seven years ago – 1929 – in the Japanese city of Matsumoto, Yayoi Kusama was born, the fourth child of a conservative upper-middle-class family. Her childhood was anything but what she wished for. She grew up with little encouragement from her parents, who did not approve of her dream of becoming an artist. By at the age of 10 she was already determined to spend her time painting, but her mother repeatedly took away her ink and paper. In 1957, Kusama found herself forced to choose between her family and her dream. With support from her psychiatrist she chose her dream and moved to New York City to become an artist. With only a small loan from a relative and a few artworks, she established her own artistic practice in the urban heart of America.

In New York Kusama was met by a white male-dominated environment that characterised the art scene of the 1960s, and came up against both sexism and racism early in her career. Influenced by other avant-garde artists she gradually developed from being a painter to being what can be described as an environment artist. Her practice now comprised a variety of media, including drawing, sculpture, film, performance and installation. Her work showed attributes of feminism, minimalism, surrealism, pop art and conceptualism, but most important was maybe the abstract expressionism, rooted in her autobiographical and psychological experiences. By exposing her persona, marked as it is with obsessiveness, she has created environments and invited viewers to participate in her absurd but fascinating, and sometimes disturbing, universe.

When entering one of Kusama’s large-scale works, the viewer is confronted with repetition and patterns reflected in mirrors, covering complete rooms. She tempts us with surroundings that force the mind to explore the boundaries of space and challenge us to separate what is real from illusion – leaving us, eventually, with deeply existential questions.

Kusama’s artistic expression has influenced and inspired many art forms. She is a published writer and poet, and has created notable work in film and fashion design. One could almost say that Kusama is her art. How she dresses, writes, sings, designs and creates always comes from her fascinating perception of the world we live in.

In 1973, Kusama returned from New York to Japan in unstable health. Soon after her return, she checked herself into the Seiwa Hospital for the Mentally Ill in Tokyo. Here she took up permanent residence, and the hospital became the place she calls home.

With her studio located nearby, she is still a very productive artist, who spends her days deeply focused and surrounded by several assistants. Kusama has worked her way though all the areas that culture has to offer and enriched it with different expressions. However, there is one element that has followed her for a longer time than any other: what she calls the polka dots. These have become her signature, and are based on hallucinations that started appearing to her soon after her arrival in the United States in 1957. Back then, the undiscovered talent was walking the streets of New York. Surrounded by concrete, she headed towards the Empire State Building. Soon she found herself on the top floor, looking down on the city, and what did she see? Dots – polka dots. At that moment the young artist made a promise to herself: one day, I will conquer the city of New York with my art and the mountains of creativity that move inside of me.

Today, Kusama is one of Japan’s most internationally recognised contemporary artists. One of her more comprehensive solo shows is currently on tour, and is on display in Stockholm this summer. So there is only one thing left to say: enjoy Kusama!

“Dots are symbols of the world, the cosmos. The earth is a dot, the moon, the sun, the stars are all made up of dots. You and me, we are dots” – Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama: In Infinity, June 11-September 11; Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Credits:

Words by Iselin Page
Special thanks to Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Kusama with Dots Obsession, Installation View from Yayoi Kusama: Eternity of Eternal Eternity, 2012, Kusama with one Infinity painting New-York,1961, Kusama Suit, 1962, Kusama with Pumpkin, Installation view from Aichi Triennale, 2010, Kusama Louis-Vuitton shop window display with Tentacles, 2012-2015, Kusama Installation view Kusama Infinity Mirror Room, 1965, Kusama Flower, 1952, Kusama Life of a human, 2014, Kusama-Yayoi_Dots-Obsession, 2012

© Yayoi Kusama. Courtesy Moderna Museet, Stockholm

The artist Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010) has had an enormous influence on the contemporary art world since the 1980s, and even since her death has been the source of new revelations. There can’t be many who are unaware of her gigantic iconic spider sculpture Maman (1999) and its casts, which have been exhibited at major museums all over the globe. It was quite unexpected that an artist as advanced in years as Bourgeois would become a symbol for feminism and deep psychological obsessions, but despite the late discovery of her substantial output, the art world quickly became mesmerised by her. Born in France in 1911 to a family who had a workshop specialising in repairing tapestries, she learned to appreciate the handicraft as a young girl. However, early disillusion came when her father’s decade-long affair with her governess was exposed. This haunted her as long as she lived and she regularly referred to it in her art. Some art critics have even suggested that her father’s infidelity came to define her whole career.

After studying in Paris, Bourgeois met the art historian Robert Goldwater (1907-1973). They married in 1938 and, after relocating to New York, adopted a boy and then, in quick succession, had two more boys of their own. Bourgeois’ awe at the impressive metropolis her new home was can be seen in her early sculptural works: loneliness, extreme architecture, the surrealists and the bebop/jazz-music scene all influenced her creation of totem-like artworks that have also been viewed as phallic symbols. She even called them her friends.

In an art scene dominated by macho painters, the abstract-impressionist movement fuelled her aspiration to reconsider her art. Following her father’s death in 1951 she fell into depression and secretly started going to psychoanalysis, which continued until 1985. She rarely exhibited during this period and was kind of a loner during the late 1950s. During the 1960s, following the emergence of pop art, she started to develop more organic forms in her sculptures, and participated in group shows, where she met the young artists Eva Hesse and Bruce Nauman. She also began using new materials, such as plastic and latex, in her work. Conceptualism, minimalism and performance were at that time reinvigorating the art world, and Bourgeois became immersed in the women’s liberation movement, leading her to feel that she had found her place in the world. Consequently, her art began to find a new meaning, a keenness to define women’s place in art history.

She began producing more sexually orientated sculptures, such as Janus Fleuri (1968) and Sleep II (1967), which undoubtedly resemble both male and female genitalia. Were they a way of dealing with her father’s betrayal? Or were they a substitute for self-abuse? Dream-like drawings then became a large part of her work and were seen throughout the rest of her career. In 1982, when Bourgeois was 70, the Museum of Modern Art in New York staged a retrospective of her work – at last, the art world was becoming aware of her importance. After receiving several awards, she moved to a large studio in Brooklyn and hired Jerry Gorovoy as her assistant. During the 1990s she exhibited extensively, even representing the US at the Venice Bienniale in 1993. Then, the monumental spiders began appearing, along with more examples of her dark and enigmatic cells.

In the beautiful exhibition currently on show at Stockholm’s Moderna Museet, her work is displayed throughout nine rooms, which have been given the following names: Runaway Girl, Loneliness, Trauma, Fragility, Nature Studies, Eternal Movement, Relationships, Talking and Giving, and Balance. These titles perfectly walk the viewer through the different chapters of Bourgeois’ life and the challenges she had to deal with. Whereas former exhibitions of Bourgeois’ work have had a gloomy, depressing air, focusing on the conflict she felt with her deceased father – seen with the dark installation “cells”, cages and enclosed compartments – in this exhibition there is a delightful levity and beauty that places the artist in a more positive and progressive light. It gives the visitor an even more comprehensive insight into her artworks and the person Bourgeois was.

Since she was more or less an outsider during the majority of her career she avoided the pitfalls of the art market, meaning she was lucky enough to be able to work undisturbed and develop artworks that were personal to her, including patched doll-like figures, glassworks, bronze objects and wood sculptures… The list is endless, as are the different techniques and materials she used, even though they were very classical and low-tech. More than 70 years of work are on show at the Moderna Museet, giving us an indication of the absolute and honest approach she had as an artist. Seven in Bed (2001) is, at first sight, a cute bundle of dolls; however, on closer inspection, there is a hint

of incest, constraint and maybe envy. In contrast to this, on the wall are several watercolours. One – called 10 AM Is When You Come to Me (2006) – shows a more direct and sensitive side: her beloved assistant Gorovoy, who worked with her until she died, usually started his working days with her at that hour. He also modelled his arms and hands for her, which led to the creation of several sculptures. Of course we cannot ignore Bourgeois’ instantly recognisable Maman (1999), the steel spider sculpture with six bronze castings that seem to be walking all over the world – a project that was made possible by the money being showered on her by an art market finally embracing her talent. The mother spider is a tender creature that helps, protects and comforts its offspring. And, as a farewell in Balance, the last room in the exhibition, there is a strong artwork – The Birth (2007) – which was painted in red watercolour on paper in a simple and fragile manner, depicting a woman giving birth: a final sign, maybe, that Louise Bourgeois was free from demons at last. Or, as a
work from 2005 of letters marked into metal simply states, I Love You.

Credits:

Words by Axel Mörner.

Louise Bourgeois: I Have Been to Hell and Back, until 17th May; Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Maman (1999), outside the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Photograph: Louise Bourgeois in her New York home in 1998, The Birth (2007), Lair (1986), Blue Is The Colour Of Your Eyes (2008), Together (2005), Father And Son (2004), Couple (2001), 10 Am Is When You Come To Me (2006), I Love You (2007), Femme Maison (2008)

He is the most likeable person you could meet, any topic you discuss turns out to be delightful and intelligent. He has a way of describing the matter eloquently, a wonderful use of words and sentences that sounds totally comprehensive.

The artworks are perfectly executed in a precise and romantic manner so that you forget about the big names he has been so inspired by. It is almost a Zen like approach to the work, all the way from his studio which is a storefront in a quiet neighborhood in Stockholm, to the formats and material that are carefully chosen and worked with. He uses his spatula in the most expressive manner, it’s the tool he has consequently used for the past decade.

This is accompanied with a fondness for Greek philosophy, that he is translating in his spare time, he also writes the most amusing stories which you will find in the impressive exhibition catalogue.

In this exhibition there are a series of new paintings, oil on acrylic glass that has been sandblasted on one side, all of the same exact formats that he always uses. There are also three minimalistic structures or sculptures in the room that has a very industrial feel over them.

A need to know is that HR has had a minor success with his paintings for the last 12 years. In a very decorative manner he has used the scraping technique favoured by the grand master Gerhard Richter, but HR has been more sparse in his use of oilpaint and makes them more uncomplicated than the master’s. Very beautiful and decorative almost like a prop for interior design.

But the new works are of a whole different story, here the artist has used the same materials but moving more towards the abstract expressionism and almost towards a total collapse of the painting process itself.

They are sometimes beautifully balanced while most of the works become complicated. The artist is evidently breaking away from Rigor mortis and moving towards a newfound freedom.
It is obvious that the artist has had thoughts for his ideal of painting as he has tried them all earlier. The result becomes an existencial outcry that seem to be leaning towards maximalism. Maybe we are experiencing the new bold and adventurous Håkan Rehnberg exploring the future of painting?

On the other hand we find his sculptures carrying a much more interesting set of ideas. The work “The Sealed Studio” is a Judd like structure of a space reminiscent of the artist studio, a storefront that is completely sealed. It generates a claustrophobic sense as the space within is unreachable like a store window at a departement store, and there is no way out, an absolutely horrible situation to encounter. A private space just like his own studio where he seldom invites visitors. The execution is straight forward with a no nonsense attitude that makes this work one of his strongest to date.

The other sculpture “Double Scene” is from a more recent date, according to the description a study of the dual possibilities in ones imagination of how we stage ourselves in life.
HR is also interested in the practice of architecture and has been working with different objects and sculptural forms that invoke architecture.

This sculpture reminds us of on of the modernist iconic buildings in New York City, the Lever building (by Gordon Bunshaft and Nathalie de Blois at Skidmore, Owings & Merril) with the elegant glasscurtain facade and its courtyard used for public displays the works seem to have a connection with Rehnbergs interest for display. There is also a clear link to the works of Mies van der Rohe and his love for details.

HR shows in this exhibition that he is able to generate true elegant energy through his sculptures that has a lot in common with the classical Greek architecture and philosophy he admires so much. Hopefully we will be able to see more of this sculptural work in the near future.

Credits:

Words by Axel Mörner

Håkan Rehnberg – Double Scene at Moderna Museet 24 january – 12 april, 2015.

The new exhibition Sculpture after Sculpture with the participant artists Katharina Fritsch, Jeff Koons and Charles Ray is a good effort by the museumchief Daniel Birnbaum. In a short lapse of time it has generated a lot of articles and discussions, all the way from applause to the offended culturejournalist at the big morningpaper.

It is important for the Swedish public to have a chance of a glimpse at the high level articons that are travelling around the world that generates so much of vital impressions that it becomes a matter of importance to world culture. Apart from the obvious references to Duchamp and the Pop art collection at the museum this is an important exhibition in itself.

The biggest star of them all is of course neopop maestro Jeff Koons who has turned his art into a multimillion business thanks to his enourmos selfconfidence and wit and of course with the help from the biggest collectors in the world like Francois Pinault, Bernard Arnauld and Dakis Joannu.

Koons fascination for the simple massproduced products like toys and other cheerful paraphernalia has become quite important icons of the contemporary world we live in. He started out in a quite seroius way producing conceptual artworks like the vacuumcleaners trapped in plexiglas cases (New Hoover Convertibles, New Shelton Wet/Drys 5-Gallon Doubledecker, 1981-87) and basketballs hovering in aquariumtanks (Two Ball Total Equilibtium Tank, 1985), having a dry matter of fact attitude of our everyday symbols. But the real shift came when he simplified his ideas and started using toys and greetingparaphernalia where we can see one of the grandest works he has done in this exhibition: Balloon Dog, 1994-2000, this work is a true masterpiece as it is simple, instantly recognizable, fun, totally harmless and very decorative. This is a piece you can put up anywhere in the world and it will get immediate attention, it works for any viewer and it touches all levels of sense and sensibility.
The problem with Koons is that as soon as he wants to get more intricate and deep philosophywise his works tend to become boring, like any other conceptualist who wants to dissect the human thoughtprocess and you leave out the fragile balance of the visual and the humour, its a dud.

Well, there are 5 unique Balloon Dog sculptures in different colors that are continously touring around the world and despite the chinese company that offer you one for a fraction of the price the artist does not fear to much intervention in his business. There are several lawsuits ongoing by the way.

The other two artists are a bit lesser known for the general public but are stars in their own right, having good careers and making a fine living from the works. They have formidable sculptures on display like the Madonnenfigur, 1987 by Fritsch and the Fall ’91 by Ray. Fritsch is a very crass matter of fact symbolic artist that has a very strict way of presenting her works, almost like Koons she minimize the traces and make it very simple for the mind to take in, but with a more teutonic dry approach that is humourless.

Charles Ray might be the most interesting one, at least if we look at his works from the 90’s when he broke through: he uses the shift in our perception and investigates in both history of art and our popular culture and uses a meticulous procedure when manufacturing the works.
Like in the sculpture Tractor, 2005, where he has dismantled a broken caterpillar tractor down to the tiniest detail and then cast everything in aluminium and as a final tribute to the machine put everything together so it resembles the real one but it is a clone or … Whatever the viewer need to see.

The exhibition was put together by Jack Bankowsky a writer and former editor of Artforum a true theorist which shows in the exhibitions lack of the visual and harsch beauty. An interesting gossip is that Mr Bankowsky’s boyfriend is Matthew Marks the gallerist who represents Fritsch and Ray, and mr Birnbaum used to write for Artforum under Mr Bankowsky’s watch. Anyway what are contacts good for if you do not use them.
Go and see the exhibition, it will make you a better person.

Sculpture after Sculpture.
11 november – 18 january, 2015
Moderna Museet, Stockholm
www.modernamuseet.se

For a more deeper investigation into the mind of Jeff Koons there is a retrospective of his career at the Centre Pompidou from 26 november – 27 april, 2015 and thereafter the show will travel to the Guggenheim Bilbao.

If you are interested in sculputral installation visit the Louisiana museum and enjoy someone more of a contemporary age, Olafur Eliasson’s exhibition Riverbed which will give you a complete turnaround on artappreciation.
Runs til january 4, 2015.

Credits:

Words by Axel Mörner